Home About us Contact
|
Home About us Contact | ||
|
|
||
Disaster Management (disaster + management)
Selected AbstractsSatellite Remote Sensing as a Tool in Lahar Disaster ManagementDISASTERS, Issue 2 2002Norman Kerle At least 40,000 deaths have been attributed to historic lahars (volcanic mudflows). The most recent lahar disaster occurred in 1998 at Casita volcano, Nicaragua, claiming over 2,500 lives. Lahars can cover large areas and be highly destructive, and constitute a challenge for disaster management. With infrastructure affected and access frequently impeded, disaster management can benefit from the synoptic coverage provided by satellite imagery. This potential has been recognised for other types of natural disasters, but limitations are also known. Dedicated satellite constellations for disaster response and management have been proposed as one solution. Here we investigate the utility of currently available and forthcoming optical and radar sensors as tools in lahar disaster management. Applied to the Casita case, we find that imagery available at the time could not have significantly improved disaster response. However, forthcoming satellites, especially radar, will improve the situation, reducing the benefit of dedicated constellations. [source] Disaster management and mitigation: the telecommunications infrastructureDISASTERS, Issue 1 2009Frédéric Patricelli Among the most typical consequences of disasters is the near or complete collapse of terrestrial telecommunications infrastructures (especially the distribution network,the ,last mile') and their concomitant unavailability to the rescuers and the higher echelons of mitigation teams. Even when such damage does not take place, the communications overload/congestion resulting from significantly elevated traffic generated by affected residents can be highly disturbing. The paper proposes innovative remedies to the telecommunications difficulties in disaster struck regions. The offered solutions are network-centric operations-cap able, and can be employed in management of disasters of any magnitude (local to national or international). Their implementation provide ground rescue teams (such as law enforcement, firemen, healthcare personnel, civilian authorities) with tactical connectivity among themselves, and, through the Next Generation Network backbone, ensure the essential bidirectional free flow of information and distribution of Actionable Knowledge among ground units, command/control centres, and civilian and military agencies participating in the rescue effort. [source] Why the poor pay with their lives: oil pipeline vandalisation, fires and human security in NigeriaDISASTERS, Issue 3 2009Freedom C. Onuoha Since its discovery in Nigeria in 1956 crude oil has been a source of mixed blessing to the country. It is believed to have generated enormous wealth, but it has also claimed a great many lives. Scholarly attention on the impact of oil on security in Nigeria has largely focused on internal conflicts rather than on how disasters associated with oil pipeline vandalisation have impacted on human security in terms of causing bodily injuries and death, destroying livelihoods and fracturing families. This paper examines how pipeline vandalisation affects human security in these ways. It identifies women and children as those who are hardest hit and questions why the poor are the most vulnerable in oil pipeline disasters in this country. It recommends the adoption of a comprehensive and integrated framework of disaster management that will ensure prompt response to key early warning signs, risk-reduction and appropriate mitigation and management strategies. [source] The 2004 Madrid train bombings: an analysis of pre-hospital managementDISASTERS, Issue 1 2008Alejandro López Carresi The terrorist train bombings in Madrid, Spain, on 11 March 2004 triggered a swift and massive medical response., This paper analyses the pre-hospital response to the attacks to gain insight into current trends in disaster management among Madrid's Emergency Medical Services (EMSs). To this end, the existing emergency planning framework is described, the basic structures of the different EMSs are presented, and the attacks are briefly depicted before consideration is given to pre-hospital management. Finally, an explanation of the main underlying misconceptions in emergency planning and management in Madrid is provided to aid understanding of the origins of some of the problems detected during the response. These are attributable mainly to inappropriate planning rather than to mistakes in field-level decision-making. By contrast, many of the successes are attributable to individual initiatives by frontline medics who compensated for the lack of clear command by senior managers by making adaptive and flexible decisions. [source] Satellite Remote Sensing as a Tool in Lahar Disaster ManagementDISASTERS, Issue 2 2002Norman Kerle At least 40,000 deaths have been attributed to historic lahars (volcanic mudflows). The most recent lahar disaster occurred in 1998 at Casita volcano, Nicaragua, claiming over 2,500 lives. Lahars can cover large areas and be highly destructive, and constitute a challenge for disaster management. With infrastructure affected and access frequently impeded, disaster management can benefit from the synoptic coverage provided by satellite imagery. This potential has been recognised for other types of natural disasters, but limitations are also known. Dedicated satellite constellations for disaster response and management have been proposed as one solution. Here we investigate the utility of currently available and forthcoming optical and radar sensors as tools in lahar disaster management. Applied to the Casita case, we find that imagery available at the time could not have significantly improved disaster response. However, forthcoming satellites, especially radar, will improve the situation, reducing the benefit of dedicated constellations. [source] Disaster Mitigation and Preparedness: The Case of NGOs in the PhilippinesDISASTERS, Issue 3 2001Emmanuel M. Luna The Philippines is very vulnerable to natural disasters because of its natural setting, as well as its socio-economic, political and environmental context - especially its widespread poverty. The Philippines has a well-established institutional and legal framework for disaster management, including built-in mechanisms for participation of the people and NGOs in decision-making and programme implementation. The nature and extent of collaboration with government in disaster preparedness and mitigation issues varies greatly according to their roots, either in past confrontation and political struggles or traditional charity activities. The growing NGO involvement in disaster management has been influenced by this history. Some agencies work well with local government and there is an increasing trend for collaborative work in disaster mitigation and preparedness. Some NGOs, however, retain critical positions. These organisations tend to engage more in advocacy and legal support for communities facing increased risk because of development projects and environmental destruction. Entry points into disaster mitigation and preparedness vary as well. Development-oriented agencies are drawn into these issues when the community members with whom they work face disaster. Relief organisations, too, realise the need for community mobilisation, and are thus drawn towards development roles. [source] Geophysical investigation and dynamic modelling of unstable slopes: case-study of Kainama (Kyrgyzstan)GEOPHYSICAL JOURNAL INTERNATIONAL, Issue 1 2008G. Danneels SUMMARY The presence of massive Quaternary loess units at the eastern border of the Fergana Basin (Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia) makes this area particularly prone to the development of catastrophic loess earthflows, causing damages and injuries almost every year. Efficient disaster management requires a good understanding of the main causes of these mass movements, that is, increased groundwater pressure and seismic shaking. This paper focuses on the Kainama earthflow, mainly composed of loess, which occurred in 2004 April. Its high velocity and the long run-out zone caused the destruction of 12 houses and the death of 33 people. In summer 2005, a field survey consisting of geophysical and seismological measurements was carried out along the adjacent slope. By combination and geostatistical analysis of these data, a reliable 3-D model of the geometry and properties of the subsurface layers, as shown in the first part of the paper, was created. The analysis of the seismological data allowed us to point out a correlation between the thickness of the loess cover and the measured resonance frequencies and associated amplification potential. The second part of this paper is focused on the study of the seismic response of the slope by numerical simulations, using a 2-D finite difference code named FLAC. Modelling of the seismic amplification potential along the slope confirmed the results obtained from the seismological survey,strong amplifications at the crest and bottom of the slope where there is a thick loess cover and almost no amplification in the middle part of the slope. Furthermore, dynamic slope stability analyses were conducted to assess the influence of local amplifications and increased groundwater pressures on the slope failure. The results of the dynamic modelling, although preliminary, show that a combination of seismic and hydrologic origin (pore pressure build-up during the seismic shaking) is the most probable scenario responsible for the 2004 failure. [source] Cooperative use of unmanned sea surface and micro aerial vehicles at Hurricane WilmaJOURNAL OF FIELD ROBOTICS (FORMERLY JOURNAL OF ROBOTIC SYSTEMS), Issue 3 2008Robin R. Murphy On Oct. 24, 2005, Hurricane Wilma, a category 5 storm, made landfall at Cape Romano, Florida. Three days later, the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue at the University of South Florida deployed an iSENYS helicopter and a prototype unmanned water surface vehicle, AEOS-1, to survey damage in parts of Marco Island, 14 km from landfall. The effort was the first known use of unmanned sea surface vehicles (USVs) for emergency response and established their suitability for the recovery phase of disaster management by detecting damage to seawalls and piers, locating submerged debris (moorings and handrails), and determining safe lanes for sea navigation. It provides a preliminary domain theory of postdisaster port and littoral inspection with unmanned vehicles for use by the human,robot interaction community. It was also the first known demonstration of the strongly heterogeneous USV,micro aerial vehicle (MAV) team for any domain. The effort identified cooperative UAV,USV strategies and open issues for autonomous operations near structures. The effort showed that the MAV provided a much-needed external view for situation awareness and provided spotting for areas to be inspected. Concepts of operations for USV damage inspection and USV,MAV cooperation emerged, including a formula for computing the human,robot ratio: Nh = (2 × Nv) + 1, where Nh is the number of humans and Nv is the number of vehicles. The outstanding research issues span three areas: challenges for USVs operating near littoral structures, general issues for USV,MAV cooperation, and new applications. It is expected that the lessons learned will be transferrable to defense and homeland safety and security applications, such as port security, and other phases of emergency response, including rescue. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] Estimating the growth models of news stories on disastersJOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Issue 9 2009Jiuchang Wei Understanding the growth models of news stories on disasters is a key issue for efficient disaster management. This article proposes a method to identify three growth models: the Damped Exponential Model, the Normal Model, and the Fluctuating Model. This method is proven to be valid using the 112 disasters occurring between 2003 and 2008. The factors that influence the likelihood of the growth models include disaster types, newsworthy material, disaster severity, and economic development of the affected area. This article suggests that disaster decision-makers can identify the respective likelihood of the three growth models of news stories when a disaster happens, and thereby implement effective measures in response to the disaster situation. [source] Locus of control and psychopathology in relation to levels of trauma and loss: Self-reports of Peloponnesian wildfire survivorsJOURNAL OF TRAUMATIC STRESS, Issue 3 2009Robert C. Mellon This study investigated whether relations between beliefs about the personal controllability of reinforcing events and levels of psychopathology were differentiated with respect to levels of trauma and loss experienced in a series of devastating wildfires. In contrast with studies of combat veterans and professional firefighters, in wildfire survivors external locus of control beliefs and psychopathology were correlated only in respondents who experienced higher levels of trauma and loss; specifically, for residents of designated disaster areas (N = 409), but not for a demographically matched sample of residents of adjacent, non-fire-damaged areas (N = 391). The conflicting findings across studies are interpreted with respect to probable differences in contingencies of reinforcement for causal attributions in professionals and in novices in disaster management. [source] Real-time evaluation in humanitarian emergenciesNEW DIRECTIONS FOR EVALUATION, Issue 126 2010Emery Brusset The authors describe real-time evaluation (RTE) as a specific tool in disaster management and within the literature on formative evaluation, monitoring, and impact assessment. RTE offers the possibility of exploring innovative ways to empower frontline disaster response staff, possibly even beneficiaries of assistance. The authors describe conditions for the success of RTE, including field credibility, organization, and rapid analysis. © Wiley Periodicals, Inc., and the American Evaluation Association. [source] Emergency Department Surge Capacity: Recommendations of the Australasian Surge Strategy Working GroupACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE, Issue 12 2009David A. Bradt MD, FACEM Abstract For more than a decade, emergency medicine (EM) organizations have produced guidelines, training, and leadership for disaster management. However, to date there have been limited guidelines for emergency physicians (EPs) needing to provide a rapid response to a surge in demand. The aim of this project was to identify strategies that may guide surge management in the emergency department (ED). A working group of individuals experienced in disaster medicine from the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine Disaster Medicine Subcommittee (the Australasian Surge Strategy Working Group) was established to undertake this work. The Working Group used a modified Delphi technique to examine response actions in surge situations and identified underlying assumptions from disaster epidemiology and clinical practice. The group then characterized surge strategies from their corpus of experience; examined them through available relevant published literature; and collated these within domains of space, staff, supplies, and system operations. These recommendations detail 22 potential actions available to an EP working in the context of surge, along with detailed guidance on surge recognition, triage, patient flow through the ED, and clinical goals and practices. The article also identifies areas that merit future research, including the measurement of surge capacity, constraints to strategy implementation, validation of surge strategies, and measurement of strategy impacts on throughput, cost, and quality of care. [source] Extreme versus quotidian: addressing temporal dichotomies in Philippine disaster managementPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION & DEVELOPMENT, Issue 3 2008Francisco G. Delfin Jr. Abstract Brief narratives of two recent events in Luzon island,a flashflood in Angeles City and an eruption of Mayon volcano,underscore the disparity between natural hazards as amplifiers of everyday hardship for many Filipinos and the Philippine disaster management system's orientation towards extreme-event response. Three major factors contribute to this dichotomy. First, population dynamics combined with the lack of access to resources compels poor Filipinos to live and work in hazardous areas, discounting risk from extreme natural events to focus on daily needs. Second, the institutional setting of the country's disaster management within the military establishment makes it difficult, though not impossible, to focus and address the underlying causes of vulnerability. Third, existing modes of funding disaster expenditures are all biased towards immediate response rather than long-term risk-reduction. The implications of these findings to disaster management and research in the Philippines are identified. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Popular mobilization and disaster management in CubaPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION & DEVELOPMENT, Issue 5 2002Holly Sims Cuba has effectively implemented a system of popular mobilization and education to prepare people for such natural disasters as hurricanes. Compliance with evacuation orders is impressive. Top priority is attached to saving lives. The country's acclaimed programme accounts for the limited toll of Hurricane Michelle in November 2001, which was the most powerful storm since 1944. Five Cubans died in the storm, which wreaked havoc in Jamaica, Honduras, and Nicaragua. This article reviews recent Cuban experience in disaster preparedness, which was achieved despite material scarcity. Since the prestigious Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns of increased susceptibility to disasters in future, Cuba's record deserves wide attention. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Soft Governance, Hard Consequences: The Ambiguous Status of Unofficial GuidelinesPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW, Issue 4 2006Taco Brandsen Soft governance is an approach to policy implementation in which the central government relies less on hierarchy than on information to steer local organizations. This allows for a combination of formal accountability and professional autonomy that improves the quality of public services in both the short and the long term. Guidelines of an advisory, unofficial status are one tool that central government can use for this purpose. However, an inherent problem with this approach is that even though guidelines have no official legal status, in practice, they can take on the character of formal regulation when local organizations suspect that they cannot choose alternative courses of action, however well reasoned, without being sanctioned. It is a situation that encourages conformist behavior and diminishes the long-term potential for innovation. This phenomenon is illustrated with an analysis of disaster management in the Netherlands. [source] A Cumulative Sum scheme for monitoring frequency and size of an eventQUALITY AND RELIABILITY ENGINEERING INTERNATIONAL, Issue 6 2010Zhang Wu Abstract This article proposes a Cumulative Sum (CUSUM) scheme, called the TC-CUSUM scheme, for monitoring a negative or hazardous event. This scheme is developed using a two-dimensional Markov model. It is able to check both the time interval (T) between occurrences of the event and the size (C) of each occurrence. For example, a traffic accident may be defined as an event, and the number of injured victims in each case is the event size. Our studies show that the TC-CUSUM scheme is several times more effective than many existing charts for event monitoring, so that cost or loss incurred by an event can be reduced by using this scheme. Moreover, the TC-CUSUM scheme performs more uniformly than other charts for detecting both T shift and C shift, as well as the joint shift in T and C. The improvement in the performance is achieved because of the use of the CUSUM feature and the simultaneous monitoring of T and C. The TC-CUSUM scheme can be applied in manufacturing systems, and especially in non-manufacturing sectors (e.g. supply chain management, health-care industry, disaster management, and security control). Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Defining Systems Expertise: Effective Simulation at the Organizational Level,Implications for Patient Safety, Disaster Surge Capacity, and Facilitating the Systems InterfaceACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE, Issue 11 2008Amy H. Kaji MD Abstract The Institute of Medicine's report "To Err is Human" identified simulation as a means to enhance safety in the medical field, just as flight simulation is used to improve the aviation industry. Yet, while there is evidence that simulation may improve task performance, there is little evidence that simulation actually improves patient outcome. Similarly, simulation is currently used to model teamwork-communication skills for disaster management and critical events, but little research or evidence exists to show that simulation improves disaster response or facilitates intersystem or interagency communication. Simulation ranges from the use of standardized patient encounters to robot-mannequins to computerized virtual environments. As such, the field of simulation covers a broad range of interactions, from patient,physician encounters to that of the interfaces between larger systems and agencies. As part of the 2008 Academic Emergency Medicine Consensus Conference on the Science of Simulation, our group sought to identify key research questions that would inform our understanding of simulation's impact at the organizational level. We combined an online discussion group of emergency physicians, an extensive review of the literature, and a "public hearing" of the questions at the Consensus Conference to establish recommendations. The authors identified the following six research questions: 1) what objective methods and measures may be used to demonstrate that simulator training actually improves patient safety? 2) How can we effectively feedback information from error reporting systems into simulation training and thereby improve patient safety? 3) How can simulator training be used to identify disaster risk and improve disaster response? 4) How can simulation be used to assess and enhance hospital surge capacity? 5) What methods and outcome measures should be used to demonstrate that teamwork simulation training improves disaster response? and 6) How can the interface of systems be simulated? We believe that exploring these key research questions will improve our understanding of how simulation affects patient safety, disaster surge capacity, and intersystem and interagency communication. [source] Core Curricular Elements for Fellowship Training in International Emergency MedicineACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE, Issue 7 2010Jamil Bayram MD ACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE 2010; 17:748,757 © 2010 by the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine Abstract Objectives:, The objective was to describe the common educational goals, curricular elements, and methods of evaluation used in international emergency medicine (IEM) fellowship training programs currently. IEM fellowship programs have been developed to provide formal training for emergency physicians (EPs) interested in pursuing careers in IEM. Those fellowships are variable in scope, objectives, and duration. Previously published articles have suggested a general curriculum structure for IEM fellowships. Methods:, A search of MEDLINE, EMBASE, and CINAHL databases from 1950 to June 2008 was performed, combining the terms international, emergency medicine, and fellowship. Online curricula and descriptive materials from IEM fellowships listed by the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM) were reviewed. Knowledge and skill areas common to multiple programs were organized in discrete categories. IEM fellowship directors were contacted for input and feedback. Results:, Eight articles on IEM fellowships were identified. Two articles described a general structure for fellowship curriculum. Sixteen of 20 IEM fellowship programs had descriptive materials posted online. These information sources, plus input from seven fellowship program directors, yielded the following seven discrete knowledge and skill areas: 1) emergency medicine systems development, 2) humanitarian relief, 3) disaster management, 4) public health, 5) travel and field medicine, 6) program administration, and 7) academic skills. Conclusions:, While IEM fellowships vary with regard to objectives and structure, this article presents an overview of the current focus of IEM fellowship training curricula that could serve as a resource for IEM curriculum development at individual institutions. [source] | |||||||||||||